During this Presidential race many Americans thought that we had put racism and sexism behind us. I don’t know about the sexism, but today it became apparent that the racism is still rampant.
This morning’s newspaper printed an article headlined “Supremacists spread anti-Obama fliers.” Apparently a white supremacist group headquartered in northwest New Jersey had dropped off fliers in driveways in Roxbury suggesting that voters should not elect Senator Obama because he is black.
This week a family member told me that an acquaintance of his was shocked that he might vote for a black man.
Now before any of us pat ourselves on the back, assuring ourselves that we are above all that, too cosmopolitan and diverse, take a look at the posts on a local Hillsborough forum. Look for the ones that refer to Senator Obama as “Hussein.” While that may in fact be the senator’s middle name, the posters do not use any other candidates’ middle names. Look for the ones that call him Barack bin Obama. Look for the ones that refer to the Muslim religion.
There are those who may argue that these aren’t racist comments, but in our hearts we all know better. Especially those making the comments.
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"The parallel between antifeminism and race prejudice is striking. The same underlying motives appear to be at work, namely fear, jealousy, feelings of insecurity, fear of economic competition, guilt feelings, and the like." - Ashley Montagu (1905 - 1999), American anthropoligist, social biologist.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Monday, September 22, 2008
NOW It's Fall
After my rant about retailers pushing the season by putting out Halloween candy in August, I was going to post that I was now willing to see Trick or Treat stuff...
Unfortunately I was in a store today and saw a pile of boxes of fake Christmas trees. Kind of ruined the whole thing.
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Happy First Day of Autumn.
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"Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying:
And this same flower that smiles today
To-morrow will be dying. " - poet Robert Herrick (1648)
Unfortunately I was in a store today and saw a pile of boxes of fake Christmas trees. Kind of ruined the whole thing.
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Happy First Day of Autumn.
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"Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying:
And this same flower that smiles today
To-morrow will be dying. " - poet Robert Herrick (1648)
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Palin Because...
While American's wonder why McCain chose Sarah Palin as his running mate, the answer seems obvious: Comedy writers needed fresh material.
This is how it came about.
With presidential campaigns being so expensive, the comedy writers all pooled their money and came up with the highest bid - uh, I mean contribution - to McCain's election fund. Since they won, they got to pick the vice-presidential candidate.
##
Okay, so do you have a better explanation?
This is how it came about.
With presidential campaigns being so expensive, the comedy writers all pooled their money and came up with the highest bid - uh, I mean contribution - to McCain's election fund. Since they won, they got to pick the vice-presidential candidate.
##
Okay, so do you have a better explanation?
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Palin: Because....
When presidential candidate McCain announced that his running mate would be Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, there was a collective ”Who?” heard across 49 of the 50 United States.
Then everyone asked “why?”- including the citizens of Alaska. I’m not even sure McCain could answer the question in depth.
But then I heard one of the night show hosts talking about President Bush’s reaction to Russia’s invasion of Georgia. According to this comedian, upon hearing about the invasion, Bush sent warplanes to Atlanta. [I’m pretty sure the comedian was joking.]
Then it occurred to me why McCain chose Palin: he thought that it would be an election coup if he could develop an alliance with a foreign country with oil reserves.
Right?
Then everyone asked “why?”- including the citizens of Alaska. I’m not even sure McCain could answer the question in depth.
But then I heard one of the night show hosts talking about President Bush’s reaction to Russia’s invasion of Georgia. According to this comedian, upon hearing about the invasion, Bush sent warplanes to Atlanta. [I’m pretty sure the comedian was joking.]
Then it occurred to me why McCain chose Palin: he thought that it would be an election coup if he could develop an alliance with a foreign country with oil reserves.
Right?
Saturday, August 30, 2008
Messing with My Moment of Zen
When Michael Phelps won all those medals at this summer’s Olympic Games, my heart sank.
This could only mean that suddenly Americans would rush to their local pools with their children in tow.
Americans are like that. When gymnast Olga Korbut competed in the 1972 and 1976 Olympics and Kurt Thomas in 1978 and Mary Lou Retton in 1984, gymnastics schools popped up all over the United States. Ice-skating’s popularity soared in 1968 with Peggy Fleming, in 1976 with Dorothy Hamill [who also contributed a haircut], and Scott Hamilton in 1984. More ice-rinks appeared and public ice-time became a rare commodity as private lessons increased.
This isn’t a new phenomenon. I happen to own a circa 1950s wooden tennis racket still in its press.
So why did Phelps’ recent achievements distress me? I happen to enjoy swimming at a local pool, as do a fair number of Hillsborough adults. Our moments of Zen occur during the calming hours spent swimming quiet laps with only other grownups in the pool. Those soothing moments may well diminish as more and more young swimmers decide they want to compete and swim teams become more popular.
Please, please don’t make swimming this year’s craze.
This could only mean that suddenly Americans would rush to their local pools with their children in tow.
Americans are like that. When gymnast Olga Korbut competed in the 1972 and 1976 Olympics and Kurt Thomas in 1978 and Mary Lou Retton in 1984, gymnastics schools popped up all over the United States. Ice-skating’s popularity soared in 1968 with Peggy Fleming, in 1976 with Dorothy Hamill [who also contributed a haircut], and Scott Hamilton in 1984. More ice-rinks appeared and public ice-time became a rare commodity as private lessons increased.
This isn’t a new phenomenon. I happen to own a circa 1950s wooden tennis racket still in its press.
So why did Phelps’ recent achievements distress me? I happen to enjoy swimming at a local pool, as do a fair number of Hillsborough adults. Our moments of Zen occur during the calming hours spent swimming quiet laps with only other grownups in the pool. Those soothing moments may well diminish as more and more young swimmers decide they want to compete and swim teams become more popular.
Please, please don’t make swimming this year’s craze.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
It's Still Summer
Okay, retailers, listen up. It’s still summer.
I am determined not to give up summer until its last day - September 21st, but you have been trying to force fall on me since the first week of August when you started advertising school supplies in the local sales circulars.
It could be that you are trying to earn some income in this slow economy or that you have central Jersey mixed up with other states where school actually starts mid-August or that cash-strapped families are trying to spread out the cost of school supplies. Be that as it may, I was not in the school supply mode.
Your advertising marched on with school clothes, dorm supplies, “fall is for planting” nursery campaigns, turkey platters, fall linens, and dire warnings about the upcoming price of heating oil.
But the straw that broke this camel’s back this week was watching the Shop Rite stockers putting up shelves of Halloween candy. Initially I thought I must have misunderstood…it was some packaging that just happened to be orange and black. I actually walked over to the mounting displays to check and it was then that I saw that the wrappings were, in fact, decorated with pumpkins and witches.
Who the heck are these people buying their Halloween candy in August and once they have purchased it, how do they resist the temptation to eat it and then have to buy more to give out to the kids…uh-oh. I think I now understand the retailer’s strategy.
##
My fight to preserve summer has apparently been futile except in my little corner of the universe where I am still weeding the garden, bringing in little bouquets of zinnias and real vine-ripened tomatoes, watching momma birds feed their almost grown babies, enjoying this summer’s still-spotted fawns, and trying to buy a new bathing suit.
I will never again worry that if I purchase Halloween candy at the beginning of October, it will be stale by October 31st.
I am determined not to give up summer until its last day - September 21st, but you have been trying to force fall on me since the first week of August when you started advertising school supplies in the local sales circulars.
It could be that you are trying to earn some income in this slow economy or that you have central Jersey mixed up with other states where school actually starts mid-August or that cash-strapped families are trying to spread out the cost of school supplies. Be that as it may, I was not in the school supply mode.
Your advertising marched on with school clothes, dorm supplies, “fall is for planting” nursery campaigns, turkey platters, fall linens, and dire warnings about the upcoming price of heating oil.
But the straw that broke this camel’s back this week was watching the Shop Rite stockers putting up shelves of Halloween candy. Initially I thought I must have misunderstood…it was some packaging that just happened to be orange and black. I actually walked over to the mounting displays to check and it was then that I saw that the wrappings were, in fact, decorated with pumpkins and witches.
Who the heck are these people buying their Halloween candy in August and once they have purchased it, how do they resist the temptation to eat it and then have to buy more to give out to the kids…uh-oh. I think I now understand the retailer’s strategy.
##
My fight to preserve summer has apparently been futile except in my little corner of the universe where I am still weeding the garden, bringing in little bouquets of zinnias and real vine-ripened tomatoes, watching momma birds feed their almost grown babies, enjoying this summer’s still-spotted fawns, and trying to buy a new bathing suit.
I will never again worry that if I purchase Halloween candy at the beginning of October, it will be stale by October 31st.
Friday, August 15, 2008
Mom's Air Conditioning
With the afternoon heat of the last few days and the higher and higher electric bills, I find myself using 1950’s techniques to cool my house.
Growing up we didn’t have air-conditioning except at the local movie theaters. Remember the banners they used to hang every summer to entice moviegoers in with the promise of coolness? They didn’t even mention what the show was – just that they were “air-conditioned”, written in ice-blue with edging suggesting a dripping ice block.
At home all the windows and doors were wide-open overnight. If you lived in a “troubled” area you kept the first floor windows shut at night and opened them about 5 a.m. As the sun rose, my mother would close the shades on the east side of the house and then the windows. By about 11 a.m. the house would be closed up, keeping in the cool night air. Sometimes the cellar door in the kitchen would be open, letting the mysteriously cool underground air float up.
We would occasionally have lunch in the shade of a big tree in the back yard and for a treat blow up the kiddie pool for an early afternoon splash. Moms would sometimes open aluminum chairs around the edge of the pool and dangle their feet in the cool water while they watched the kids and visited with each other.
Babies lay on a blanket in the shade with their damp hair stuck to their foreheads.
By 2 p.m. it was naptime with a fan in the hall to stir around the by-then warmish air. My mother would do quiet cool work – no baking or ironing. By four, with the temperature having maxed out, it was time to start stirring again.
Dinner would be cooking on top of the stove – no roasts this time of the year. As a treat we might cook hamburgers outside or actually be decadent and have cold-cuts with sliced tomatoes from the garden and homemade potato salad out of the fridge.
By nine p.m. it was time to start the cooling cycle again, opening the windows for the night. A large box fan sat on a desk in my room all night – the room at the far end of the second floor - exhausting the day’s heat out the window and pulling in the cooler night air from downstairs.
##
"It was luxuries like air conditioning that brought down the Roman Empire. With air conditioning their windows were shut, they couldn’t hear the barbarians coming."
- Garrison Keillor, Lake Wobegon Days
##
When an acquaintance lost their air-conditioning for almost two weeks this July, I went in on hot days to check on their pets. I pulled down the unused rolled-up shades on the sunny-side of the house to block the sun’s heat and turned off window fans pulling the early afternoon humidity into the house.
They seemed surprised.
I guess no one teaches simple home-based climate control anymore. It’s just easier to switch on the air conditioner, use up the environment, and be shocked when the electric bill arrives.
Growing up we didn’t have air-conditioning except at the local movie theaters. Remember the banners they used to hang every summer to entice moviegoers in with the promise of coolness? They didn’t even mention what the show was – just that they were “air-conditioned”, written in ice-blue with edging suggesting a dripping ice block.
At home all the windows and doors were wide-open overnight. If you lived in a “troubled” area you kept the first floor windows shut at night and opened them about 5 a.m. As the sun rose, my mother would close the shades on the east side of the house and then the windows. By about 11 a.m. the house would be closed up, keeping in the cool night air. Sometimes the cellar door in the kitchen would be open, letting the mysteriously cool underground air float up.
We would occasionally have lunch in the shade of a big tree in the back yard and for a treat blow up the kiddie pool for an early afternoon splash. Moms would sometimes open aluminum chairs around the edge of the pool and dangle their feet in the cool water while they watched the kids and visited with each other.
Babies lay on a blanket in the shade with their damp hair stuck to their foreheads.
By 2 p.m. it was naptime with a fan in the hall to stir around the by-then warmish air. My mother would do quiet cool work – no baking or ironing. By four, with the temperature having maxed out, it was time to start stirring again.
Dinner would be cooking on top of the stove – no roasts this time of the year. As a treat we might cook hamburgers outside or actually be decadent and have cold-cuts with sliced tomatoes from the garden and homemade potato salad out of the fridge.
By nine p.m. it was time to start the cooling cycle again, opening the windows for the night. A large box fan sat on a desk in my room all night – the room at the far end of the second floor - exhausting the day’s heat out the window and pulling in the cooler night air from downstairs.
##
"It was luxuries like air conditioning that brought down the Roman Empire. With air conditioning their windows were shut, they couldn’t hear the barbarians coming."
- Garrison Keillor, Lake Wobegon Days
##
When an acquaintance lost their air-conditioning for almost two weeks this July, I went in on hot days to check on their pets. I pulled down the unused rolled-up shades on the sunny-side of the house to block the sun’s heat and turned off window fans pulling the early afternoon humidity into the house.
They seemed surprised.
I guess no one teaches simple home-based climate control anymore. It’s just easier to switch on the air conditioner, use up the environment, and be shocked when the electric bill arrives.
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